We're attending my friends' Joe and Jennifer's new son Cooper's baby shower, so posting this weekend will be sparse or even nonexistent. I hope to catch up on Memorial Day, but I have a lot of other stuff to catch up with as well (the to-do list on my Palm grows ever longer), so we'll see.
enetation comments for previous posts archived here:
x
i see episode two
reaction to come
I've said before how lucky I am to have Crystal as my wife. I'm not just lucky because, given the choice between Star Wars and the new Hugh Grant movie, Crstal picked the former, but because given the choice between those two flicks, Star Wars was what she wanted to see.
enetation comments for previous posts archived here:
x
game companies pander to audience at e3
Today's game technology allows for deigners to model lifelike movement in extreme sports games. Of course, well aware that the audience for games is primarily 18- to 34-year old males, this modeling includes the realistic fluttering of short skirts and, um, accurate wave motion applied to female characters' upper anatomy. And trade shows like the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) are well known for the spandex-clad models that seek to draw attention to certain booths.
Of course, this phenomenon is nothing new. Among the secrets in Soul Edge are codes that allow you to change not only the characters' outfits but the color of the panties some female characters wear. And of course there's Tomb Raider.
I'm at the extreme upper edge of this target market, which I guess explains why I look for a little more in games than that.
enetation comments for previous posts archived here:
Friday, May 24, 2002x
now that's good news
North Dakota State University Sam Chang is on a project to create enzymes that break down raffinose oligosaccharides. Simply put, Chang's research could result in beans that produce minimal flatulence. Chang's research currently involves ground beans; he said it woudln't work on whole legumes because raffinose oligosaccharides are sugars (undigestible by humans but edible to their intestinal bactieria), and removing the sugars would affect the beans' flavor.
Aside from the obvious social benefits of Chang's research, eliminating the gas would make beans a good food source for babies. Only a complete idiot would feed an infant a diet consisting of beans, despite the fact that they're generally healthy—rich in protein and low in fat—because the gas they produce is painful to babies.
enetation comments for previous posts archived here:
x
i find their choice of sizes highly illogical
Trekkies—I'm a Trekkie, you're a Trekkie, and if you're the kind of person who insists on being called a Trekker because you don't want to sound like a geek, you're an even bigger geek than you fear—delight in collecting memorabilia from the show. (I highly recommend the wonderful documentary I just linked to.) Now fans will get to put their wallets on the line in the battle for the ultimate prize: a pile of plastic and plywood also known as the original Captain's Chair. Yes, the same chair seen in the episodes of the original Star Trek (Wired calls it the "Holy Grail") can grace your rumpus room, if you have the scratch.
In 2001, a group of the show's original creators hosted a live auction on eBay to sell off memorabilia including the only remaining production model of the U.S.S. Enterprise and one of the uniform shirts worn by William Shatner as Capt. Kirk.
enetation comments for previous posts archived here:
x
i'm a lucky guy
I shouldn't go any farther without celebrating a very special anniversary. I've been married to the wonderful Crystal for four years today. To celebrate, we were considering taking in the new Star Wars movie or a Hugh Grant film, and she picked Star Wars. I love her! Thanks, sweetie, for making our life together such a joy. You make me very, very happy, my wife.
enetation comments for previous posts archived here:
x
krispy kream kicks kiester
Here's one piece of good financial news—my favorite donut shop, Krispy Kreme, just announced profits that exceeded analysts' expectations. The chain of more than 200 doughnut shops in the United States enjoyed increased sales and revenue in the first quarter, with income hitting a tasty $111.1 million. Company executives predicting ongoing growth as the chain rolls out a line of specialty coffees.
enetation comments for previous posts archived here:
x
rust bucket
Speaking of maritime hazards, Wired recently had an interesting piece about the alarming propensity of oil tankers to break up at sea. It seems that a particularly virulent form of corrosion—"super rust"—attacks the tankers' hulls, making them susceptible to structual failure.
enetation comments for previous posts archived here:
x
ice ice baby
As long as we're in update mode, another massive iceberg has broken away from Antartica. Just four days earlier, an Australian scientist predicted the two huge icebergs that had already broken from the Ross Ice Shelf were likely to be the last such events for a while.
enetation comments for previous posts archived here:
x
// deadly idiot update //
Remember the boy convicted of killing a six-year-old girl by imitating pro wrestling moves? His lawyer has now appealed the 14-year-old's life sentence, arguing the teen was treated more harshly than other youths who committed similar offenses, and that a life senetence that begins atr age 12 constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. The conviction and sentence followed the rejection by the boy's trial attorney and mother rejecting a plea bargain that would have resulted in a mere four years' confinement.
If there are more youths that have committed "similar offenses"—mainly breaking the skull of a girl half their age and one-fourth their weight in an egregious confusion of fantasy and reality—we're in worse trouble than I thought.
enetation comments for previous posts archived here:
x
now that's an eye opener
Does anyone else remember the TV commercials for Coast soap? The tag line was (and is) "the eye-opener" and the commercials would feature zombie-like people getting into their showers all sleepy, and slowly waking up, literally lathering themselves into a joyous frenzy thanks to the stimulating powers of the soap? Although even as a tender youth I was skeptical of a soap's power to dispel the webs of somnolescence, but it seems there's now a product that has the chops: caffeinated soap! Don't eat it; the drug is absorbed through the skin! w00t!
I think this would be a good time to mention that I once drank a beer with Pete Buck while interviewing him for my college paper. I saw R.E.M twice, on the Reconstruction tour in Lexington and in Louisville on the Pageantry tour (and was front row center for that one! w00t!). Joe Hans, Barbie Gatton and I snuck backstage after the show in Lexington and got autographs from Buck, Mills and Berry. Back then, the band would come out after the show and talk to any fans who cared to stick around for an hour or so.
enetation comments for previous posts archived here:
x
i get carried away and am called on it
Faithful readers (both of you) will recall yesterday's post on Bush's assurance to Miami's Cuban-American community that the trade embargo against Cuba will remain until Castro transforms his regime until a democracy. Dodd of Ipse Dixit emailed me to take exception with my comments:
<< Of course, the fact that Castro has been around for us to embargo for 40 years perfectly illustrates how effective this policy has been. >>
Or one might say that, since the USSR propped up the Cuban economy for 30 of those years, now would be the worst time to lift the embargo - since it can finally have the intended effect. Personally, I think we probably should lift it - free trade and tourism would undermine it much faster than the embargo, but suggesting that it is maintained exclusively at the whim of one minority community is reductionist in the extreme - and fails to account for the popularity of the measure in numerous Democratic Administrations (seems to me that the Administration most concerned about Cuba was JFK's).
Thinking about it, I realized that blaming the embargo solely on Cuban-Americans is going too far. Further analysis, however, will have to wait until I can access a computer that can funnel a larger post.
enetation comments for previous posts archived here:
x
my type of thing
Graphic designer Mark Simonson has this amusing analysis of typefaces used in recent movies. He points out several occasions in which a studio, striving to create a period feel, uses a font that didn't exist until decades after the movie was set. As a movie buff who's worked in various aspects of publishing, I enjoyed the essay.
enetation comments for previous posts archived here:
x
word on star wars ep 2
My friends Hardin and Sparky emailed me over the weekend to give their impressions of the new Star Wars movie, Attack of the Clones. Since I haven't seen it yet, I thought I'd share what they had to say.
Sparky had sent around an email confessing his anxiety on the eve of his first screening. Essentially, he said his hopes were high yet he was fearful of being disappointed.
Hardin reassured him in reply:
I saw it last night and rather liked it--not up to the standards of the original or Empire, but I think better than Return and way better than the seriously flawed episode 1. I still can't quite figure out the whole Fett fetish, though.
Basically, I think you'll be pleased with Clones because, in the context of a series of movies with a known ending, it still has some pretty solid surprises and heads in a somewhat different direction than you might expect.
So did Sparky like it? Let's see:
It's good. Very good. Far from perfect, and not as good as the first two films, but better than the last 2.
The usual Lucas deficiencies are present: Sometimes awkward dialogue, mediocre to poor acting (Christopher Lee and Frank Oz provide the film's best performances) and the blatant swiping of scenes from other films (THE SEARCHERS again, this time).
However, this time Lucas drowns out those flaws in a flood of eye-catching, edge-of-your-seat action sequences that dominate the final two-thirds of the film...In a bold choice, Lucas allows Anakin to be portrayed as an arrogant jerk most of the time -- troubled and somewhat sympathetic, but not warm or wholly likeable; clearly, Anakin is on his way to becoming Darth Vader. (If only Lucas had cast an actor in that key role, instead of Christensen.)
Also, Lucas does a masterful job of putting to good use the wealth of characters introduced in the previous film, as well as new ones we meet here. Mace Windu and Yoda are especially prominent...There's a lot less comedy in this film than in the last 2, and most of what is in the film is actually funny (thanks to our old pal C3PO). And, as you'd expect, the f/x are staggeringly good.
Episode II is also loaded with little tidbids for geek boys like me...Let's just say that if you're a big fan, there's tons of stuff in here for you.
enetation comments for previous posts archived here:
x
hope lingers for internet radio
The US Copyright Office has rejected a royalty rate system that Internet radio broadcasters maintained would cripple independent netcasting. Register of Copyrights Marybeth Peters and Librarian of Congress James H. Billington rejected the proposed royalty, but did not indicate whether the replacement would be higher or lower. Both Webcasters and the recording industry, which have been unable to agree on a royalty system, saw the decision as a potential victory.
enetation comments for previous posts archived here:
x
call my agent
Tomb Raider's Lara Croft is the subject of a series of video games and a successful feature film, with a sequel in the works. Now she's the first video game character to be represented by a Hollywood talent agency. Creative Artists Agency has announced it's signed the buxome video game character as part of its talent roster. (CAA already represents Microsoft's Xbox, but that's a console, not a character.) The agency plans to use Croft's high profile to launch product tie-ins and a TV series.
enetation comments for previous posts archived here:
x
whoa, back up a bit
Well, it looks like Napster isn't kaput after all. German music giant Bertelsmann has acquired the file-trading system (at a bargain-basement price: US$8 million, as opposed to the US$16 million Napster's board of directors rejected, prompting the company's apparent crisis), and creator Shawn Fanning and CEO Konrad Hilbers are to remain with the company.
enetation comments for previous posts archived here:
x
bush vows to maintain cuba embargo
Playing to the rabidly anti-Castro Cuban expatriate comminity in Floida, whose support helped clinch his razor-thin victory, President Bush has pledged to maintain the 40-year-old embargo against Castro's regime. Of course, the fact that Castro has been around for us to embargo for 40 years perfectly illustrates how effective this policy has been. I can just see the headlines in 2042: "US vows to uphold sanctions against Iraq; insists Hussein must comply with UN resolutions."
Actually, I think Hussein will be long gone by then (but not thanks to any imminent US military action). Still, it's clear that the Cuban sanctions simply don't work and are maintained solely to placate a tiny but aggressively vocal minority. I'd ask why we're letting such a small interest group dictate US foreign policy, but for the answer we have just to look back to the last presidential election.
enetation comments for previous posts archived here:
x
in space no one throws water balloons
In an experiment to test how space workers could "rapidly deploy large liquid drops by rupturing an enclosing membrane," NASA scientists have posted what happens when they popped a water balloon in microgravity environment.
enetation comments for previous posts archived here:
Sunday, May 19, 2002x
very tricky
Even though I don't smoke, I own a Zippo lighter (actually two now, since I got a second, engraved one when I ushered for my friends Mark and Vanessa's wedding). I've never been able to do anything fancy with it (heck, I never used it much at all, and I don't even carry one much these days; my cell phone rides in that pocket instead). But thanks to this site, I might break the old thing out and learn some fly moves. It even has 3d-rendered Zippo wallpaper!
